berry1014

I am always dreaming of a White Christmas! The last "white" Christmas we had was 8 years ago. It snowed on the 23rd and there was still snow on the grass on Christmas day. Before that it had been years. I want it to snow starting on Christmas eve and end Christmas night.

Usually we take everything down around Jan 1st. Depends on what we have planned and the weather.

We start string up the outside lights a weekend or two before Thanksgiving, depending on the weather but do not turn them on until Thanksgiving weekend. Sometime in Nov my daughter will start asking to put up her Christmas tree. She has a small 2 1/2 foor tree for her bedroom. That is normally up and decorated before thanksgiving. I will start the rest of the decorating right after Thanksigiving dinner and the Saturday after. If we get back from shopping early enough on BF then we will decorate that day too.

I am making home made hot chocolate and tree shaped rice crispy treats and then will decorate them with little candies and icing. I also make home made cookies to give out as well.

Depends on type of holiday stress you are referring too. The people in the stores while out shopping. Family? Decorating? My best advice is plan early, shop as much as possible early and organize as much as possible. Nothing worse then looking for something when you need it the most. I keep notebook strictly for Christmas. I plan the meals for our everyday dinner along with the holiday dinners/parties. A section for gifts all ready bought and gift ideas and for who. A section for different events we want to attend or do, even simple things like taking an evening and go looking at lights or doing an all night christmas movie fest. Good luck.

My best friend, SIL, MIL and sometimes my cousin will head out around 4 am and hit walmart. The only main store in our town. Once we are done there we head back to my house to unload and then my DH joins us. I am not sure who will be going this year due to some changing jobs, moving etc.

We leave about 4 am and will finish up around lunch time. A couple of times we didn't finish until late afternoon. It all depends on how much stuff we are getting and what stores we need to go to.

We go to walmart first. It's the only store close to us. We will get there about 4 am. after that we stop at home to unload and then head out to do the rest of our shopping.

Some of the stuff is in a tote in my closet. We also have a large laundry room and a workshop room with plenty of storage space. We stash the smaller gifts in totes in the laundry room and the bigger stuff in the workshop which are off limits to the kids.

I have also been thinking about black friday. I can not wait. I am ready to shop now.

I didn't buy as much as I did last year nor did spned as much. We were done shopping by noon. Last year we finished alot later then that.

Before we had kids we would visit the parents but now we stay home and we host Christmas dinner so everyone comes to us. We refuse to take our kids away from their Christmas.

650. we have a prelite tree

Circuit City was the worst - only had 5 registers and about 75 + people in each line. Walmart was the best - was able to get in - get what I needed and get out without any problems or wait.

We tried to buy a toys for different age ranges. Over the weekend we bought a fisher price toy for infants, a mr potato head, packs of play doh, and the jenga game for older kids.

everyday my 5 yo. daughter is showing me a toy commercial or a toy ad in the paper that she wants. I just tell her that she can not get everything that she wants cause Santa has to make sure he has enough toys for ALL the good boys and girls and if he gives her everything that she wants there may not be enough for the other kids.

Not this year but last year my MIL joined us for the first time and she is joinging us again. Over the years I have introduced BF to several people, my mom, sil, best friend, cousins. It's so much fun.

I agree with everyone on here about line cutters and rude people. I also hate people who try to bully others or start a fight so they can get an item that someone else has.

I would wrap most if all of the stuff on the tub.

There are several websites that play christmas music like accu-radio.

I am waiting for Walmart - that is the store we have always hit first.

Yes he does since we shop for our kids and extended family together.

We always hit McDonalds for breakfest. Lunch will depend on where we are.

Walmart - it is the closest - only 10 minutes away. After that we head over to Delaware for the rest of our shopping.

We do 6-10 gifts each plus stocking. Our kids are the only grandkids so far so they get spoiled from everyone.